Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Best Means

It is only when the People become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, by all wise and constitutional measures, promote intelligence among the People, as the best means of preserving our liberties.

-- James Monroe (1758 - 1831), fifth President of the United States, author of the Monroe Doctrine, first Inaugural Address, 4 March 1817